I predict it will only take a day for someone to start working on a project to rewrite this in some more open source friendly language. Just because it says OpenSimulator doesn't mean it really is.

I've been waiting for this whole ordeal to happen. I consider this technology to be the next medium that everyone will use and it will supplant HTTP. It needed two requirements for it to take off though. First, an open protocol needed to be developed and second it needed to be possible to interconnect different servers together to make once cohesive environment. Well, we have the first part now, is this the second part?

You make it sound like HTML is a wonderfully-formed language that everyone uses well, or that Actionscript and Javascript aren't messy as hell. Lets face it, you're fucked no matter what language is dominant.

Yeah, but Java is an open source de facto standard from a very open source friendly company.
C#/.NET is the technological equivalent of a creepy, balding middle aged man in sunglasses driving around offering kids candy.

They don't need to attack Wine and Samba, and they probably don't need to attack Mono. So long as they're implementations of protocols they control, they can always Gates them to death if they need to.

There's a reason companies like NetApp are licensing Microsoft's SMB implementation rather than using Samba... they get to see the extensions before they're embraced-and-extended.

I thought Microsoft released a patent promise not to sue on any protocols they've released and/or opened up. Suing over the items they're opening up would basically violate the EU agreement. Microsoft wouldn't get anything out of the suit, and they'd end up paying massive (half a billion dollars last time) fines.

Wouldn't it be wiser to spend that effort working on a project that makes C# more open source friendly [mono-project.com], rather than simply rewriting any/all projects that use it?

There's not a whole lot of open source projects in C# (or for the.NET platform more generally) that don't have comparable open source projects that aren't targetted to.NET, but to more open source platforms (either because they are more platform agnostic or because they target a specific platform whose principal implementation

I consider this technology to be the next medium that everyone will use and it will supplant HTTP.

They said that about VRML replacing HTML, but readers didn't prefer a 3D room over a 2D page.

I think that this was because they were trying to run before they even learned to crawl. I mean they tried to get VRML going back in the mid 90s when most people still didn't know what the Internet was. They needed something simpler to introduce people too. Maybe now VRML would do better if it had some momentum behind it, but it doesn't, and now this is here so tough luck.

They said that about VRML replacing HTML, but readers didn't prefer a 3D room over a 2D page.

I think that this was because they were trying to run before they even learned to crawl. I mean they tried to get VRML going back in the mid 90s when most people still didn't know what the Internet was. They needed something simpler to introduce people too. Maybe now VRML would do better if it had some momentum behind it, but it doesn't, and now this is here so tough luck.

Speaking as someone who was there (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Vrmlguy [wikipedia.org]), VRML was indirectly crashed by Microsoft. MS was pushing something, maybe Direct3D, as *the* 3-D technology for the next millennium. In response, SGI started opening up every piece of IP they had, apparently on the theory that a small part of a open-sourced world was better than no part of an MS-controlled one. VRML was written and implemented in no time at all, and yeah, there's a few bugs that got included. As it turned out

The VRML people made a terrible mistake. They 1) went XML, and 2) got taken over by advertising people. The VRML effort was shut down in favor of something called "X3D", which is, exactly, VRML syntax with XML delimiters. "Now you can have spinning 3D logos with 60 characters of X3D!". This positioned X3D as an ad-delivery system, for which it's terrible.

If you bring up an old VRML viewer on a modern machine with a good broadband connection, it works great. It's still not very useful, but it does work. Most computers of 1997 didn't have enough graphics power to run VRML properly, so it was hopeless back then. (I had a machine that did, because I was using a high-end animation system. But it cost $6000 and sat in a 19 inch rack.)

You can be too early. I was interviewed by "There" [there.com] when they were starting up. They were determined to make a 3D shared virtual world that would work over a dial-up modem. [there.com] I told them this was going to produce a terrible user experience, drive them nuts trying to cram that data through a tiny pipe, and that by the time they got the thing going, enough users would have broadband to make a broadband-only product feasible. They stayed with dial-up, launched There just as broadband was starting to get serious market share, never really made it, and downsized when the funding ran out. There is now owned by something called "Makena Technologies", still running, and still designed for dial-up modems.

I've been waiting for this whole ordeal to happen. I consider this technology to be the next medium that everyone will use and it will supplant HTTP. It needed two requirements for it to take off though. First, an open protocol needed to be developed and second it needed to be possible to interconnect different servers together to make once cohesive environment. Well, we have the first part now, is this the second part?

With respect, there have been numerous attempts to replace text based protocols with visual worlds since before the web. I remember drooling over ads in my dad's old Atari ST magazines where BBSes were advertising virtual worlds where everything was represented as a building in a isometric 3d city and people ran along the streets talking to each other.

These have never taken off as the main stream interface because even if you were able to achieve a completely believeable virtual world, it still wouldn't present the same information bandwidth as simply pulling up pages and reading them. And porn jokes aside, the real drive of the internet is presenting information, not pretty visuals.

These will always be the niche, rather than the mainstream, way of interacting because no one wants to 'run' for 30 mintutes to do something that could be accomplished in 30 seconds outside of the world.

That being said, I wouldn't mind seeing what could be created once the reigns were passed from corporations looking for money to Joe Six-Pack. Will it be a revolution or another eternal September?

Given Second Life is already exhibiting a second coming of 'GeoCities' crappy design, I'm not certain I'll be welcoming our new OpenSim overlords.

Interoperability is the interesting part for me. Graphics can be upgraded, but if there is a simple standard available for me to connect my online persona with many different online worlds, that begins to change things.

Host your own servers, do your own stuff, invite who you want, go to other places on a whim (just type the address), visit other people, etc. I remember how bad websites were in the early 90's. Tacky animated gifs, horrible images... this is the second life of today. With time, stand

in seeing this come to the inevitable Open Source Server code from Linden. Though I mentioned "inevitable", it was hoped this would happen when they released the viewer source.

My opinion is Open Source and complete interoperability between the SL Grid and OpenSim Grids will never happen. Just look at the number of viewers that were coded to grab peoples credentials, then multiply that by a malicious server admin.

Taking into account the amount of real world revenue the game generates, I don't foresee this

How is this different then an Apache server serving a page to a Firefox browser with a link that takes the viewer to an IIS web page?

The only catch is that people in the virtual world may want their virtual stuff to go along with them, and that part will be more difficult. Set that aside, and I don't think it's inconceivable to have pretty good interoperability.

After all the hype of Second Life, and the realization that only a bunch of furries and other weirdos [theregister.co.uk] (NSFW) are into it, why prolong the suffering of SL with initiatives like these?

The problem with all 'virtual worlds' is simply that they are boring. There is nothing more for the average user to do than walk around and be a good little virtual consumer of virtual products. This in contrast with the massively popular MMORPGs that, while they are criticized for the grind-fest, at least give their users a good time in the process (how else could one explain the millions of paying WoW/Eve/whatnot users, compared to the thousands not paying a dime in SL?).

So (and this is not a troll), who cares about SL or any similar 'virtual world'? What am I missing about virtual worlds that seems so attractive to hype, corporations and in this case even open source developers, but clearly not to ordinary users?

The problem with all 'virtual worlds' is simply that they are boring. There is nothing more for the average user to do than walk around and be a good little virtual consumer of virtual products.

Those are stupid users and I would be happy if they would go away on Second life. Much like the annoying club people.

They don't do anything creative on Second life, they just take up space, they're not interesting conversation and are so computer illiterate, everything is a issue for them. They come up with random explanations for problems they're having which has nothing to do with it.

On Second life, I spend a lot of time scripting, building things. From things from in-world air defense systems to play against other builders as a game to building things that are deemed practically impossible or really difficult due to the technical limitations in world.

(how else could one explain the millions of paying WoW/Eve/whatnot users, compared to the thousands not paying a dime in SL?).

Second life is not a game. It's a virtual world. It's not a roleplaying game.

So (and this is not a troll), who cares about SL or any similar 'virtual world'? What am I missing about virtual worlds that seems so attractive to hype, corporations and in this case even open source developers, but clearly not to ordinary users?

Nothing, it isn't exploitable by corporations, ordinary users are too stupid to make any use of it - although there are some that go there and just waste resources and in the case of open source developers - I don't see how a DRM system that Second life uses interests Opensource developers when they can't prevent people from close sourcing their builds or scripts.

On Second life, I spend a lot of time scripting, building things. From things from in-world air defense systems to play against other builders as a game to building things that are deemed practically impossible or really difficult due to the technical limitations in world.

So, what you are saying is that people actually turn SL into a game?

I guess that the boundaries between role playing games and virtual worlds aren't that clear as you make them out to be, although the former tend to be more limiting when i

Interesting how Lindenlabs are trying to foster creativity (as they do seem to think it's important, otherwise they wouldn't have tried this). It's actually a pity SL hasn't gotten very far (I certainly had higher hopes for it), but it's still an interesting experiment to see what works.

Actually one of the anti-air defense missiles is a giant dong I made out of bordom. It's pretty hilarious watching those bombard a fighter craft.

*Sigh*... And this is where you just lost your argument, and confirmed the parents view (bias as it may be) on all the people in SL. I think if you had omitted this little anecdote, the merit of your argument might have still carried weight.
I have nothing against SL even if it's not for me. It's an avenue of entertainment like any other vice; we all have them.

*Sigh*... And this is where you just lost your argument, and confirmed the parents view (bias as it may be) on all the people in SL. I think if you had omitted this little anecdote, the merit of your argument might have still carried weight.

I never denied that. I have been agreeing with each of that person's points, except for the 'boring' argument. But it is exactly true that "There is nothing more for the average user to do than walk around and be a good little virtual consumer of virtual products." and

That's yet to be determined. There have been a number of corporations that have done some really dumb things in SL... like expecting people to pay for a box textured to look like an MP3 player or PC... and turned around and thrown their hands up. That just means that they haven't figured it out yet.

The same kinds of comments were made about the web in the early days. It's useless. People don't get it. Corporations can't succeed. It's only for porn. You know

That's yet to be determined. There have been a number of corporations that have done some really dumb things in SL... like expecting people to pay for a box textured to look like an MP3 player or PC... and turned around and thrown their hands up. That just means that they haven't figured it out yet.

Second Life now? Second life in five or ten years? Some descendent of OpenSim in five or ten years? You're looking at the equivalent of the Internet in the late '80s and early '90s, when the only browser available required a NeXT workstation, and asking why there isn't a Google yet.

Second Life now? Second life in five or ten years? Some descendent of OpenSim in five or ten years? You're looking at the equivalent of the Internet in the late '80s and early '90s, when the only browser available required a NeXT workstation, and asking why there isn't a Google yet.

Gopher was quite fine back then for retrieving information, even had a decent search capability and perfectly logical category system. E-mail was popular with those who had a address.

Yes, you had gopher, and FTP, and Finger. You had BBS systems. You had Compuserve and other online services that were totally dominating in the search for a business model: I was paying $60 a month for a news clipping service called NewsNet in 1984, and Compuserve came up with something similar and I dropped it.

The only non-centralized system that had any business interest was email.

Email was a huge mess: there were at least 30 competing email systems... it was the only network protocol that business really

There's Second Life and OpenSim and Lively and There and IMVU and ActiveWorlds and HiPiHi and Habbo Hotel and...

It's a mess.

You're saying, it sounds like, that the ad-hoc system that (I suppose) only geeks can understand is useless for business because it's too complex and people don't spend money in it. Like Internet Mail was, because unlike MCI Mail and Compuserve Mail, it was too complex and there was no way to charge people for it.

Which is why my email address is still "c=us/o=compuserve/ou=cis/id=7021

You're saying, it sounds like, that the ad-hoc system that (I suppose) only geeks can understand is useless for business because it's too complex and people don't spend money in it.

No, I'm saying it's useless because the current platform cannot do anything worthwhile in scripting, building or otherwise. Second life is not ad-hoc, it is entirely centralized by Linden lab. The Opensim non-sense can't even connect to the Second life grid.

I've found it adds something to the show to sit in SL when the show is on, as there are quite a few knowledgable people in the SL audience who can add something to the show as chat.

What I'm curious about is this: what does SL offer beyond a traditional IRC-style chat? Wouldn't a chatroom on the show's website offer an easier way to communicate? (As it lowers the barrier to entry and is more efficient with regards to multitasking).

what does SL offer beyond a traditional IRC-style chat? Wouldn't a chatroom on the show's website offer an easier way to communicate?

Ambiance. Just as there are people who find mutt or an xterm-based IRC client perfectly adequate, yet the vast majority prefers a GUI font-end. As anyone can tell you, the packaging does make a difference to the product.

In what way is a "chatroom" more efficient with regards to multitasking? I'm not sure I get this one. What kinds of things are you thinking of?

Multitasking as a human, not as a computer. I can have an IRC client running in the background while I'm working and get a popup/alert when someone is talking to me. SL, and any other virtual world, assumes you are doing nothing else besides SL. Thus, its use as a background application is limited.

As I recall SL sits in the background and alerts (icon bounces or changes color, depending on the OS) when you have a message. Have you actually tried this, or are you just assuming that it doesn't work?

Second Life is a poor implementation of an awesome idea. The problem is that there's no purpose to it yet... it's ahead of its time. They've built a platform with no content, and they're relying on their users to fill the gap.

I don't care much for the game itself, but I do care about the concept of virtual worlds. I believe it's necessary for human culture to always have new frontiers - wild west zones where men with ambition can make their own fate.

Think about what you just said. Then consider all the other Second Life spin off virtual worlds that have failed. Linden Labs was able to pull off what many others have failed to do. And they did a pretty good job of it. Sure, the client might be inherently buggy, and support might not be the best. But the world they've allowed to be created, and the community that surrounds it is incredible.

They've built a platform with no content, and they're relying on their users to fill the gap.

When SL started, the original content was created by Linden Labs. You act as though they simply opened the grid as a

At first, they were just boring static pages that were either a horrible marketing attempt. How far has the internet come now that there are things like collaborative Encyclopedia building (Wiki), Google docs, YouTube, Ebay etc.

It is impossible to tell what this medium will make possible in 5 years.

Also, I wouldn't exactly call IBM [ibm.com] a furry or weirdo. Nor would I say that Cisco [cisco.com] is either. There are also a growing number of universities colleges u

At first, they were just boring static pages that were either a horrible marketing attempt. How far has the internet come now that there are things like collaborative Encyclopedia building (Wiki), Google docs, YouTube, Ebay etc.

Wrong. The first websites were very effective at the dissemination of information (for instance at CERN), there was nothing else that came close. Marketing only jumped on the bandwagon at the end of the 90's, which lead to the i

I can't help but remain skeptical. Maybe it's due to having read too many articles on El Reg, but maybe, just maybe, all those articles about Second Life are just attempts from Linden Labs to keep the hype running? I don't know a single person who has stayed in SL beyond simply trying it out.

Tell me, are your friends like yourself. Are they "traditional hardcore geeks"? SL isn't for you.

Alas, of all my friends I'm the weird little geek. The take-up of social networks is enormous, but SL? Most haven't even heard of it. If SL isn't for geeks, and isn't interesting enough to non-geeks, a question begs: for who is SL?

Second Life is the http to There/IMVU/Actiworlds/VRML's gopher/veronica/archie. SL is the NCSA Mosaic of virtual worlds, primitive and cludgy in certain ways, but still there's nothing

Opensim allows use of either a basic physics engine or OpenDynamicsEngine which has COD 4 on its list

Which, I have used and is entirely rubbish, it doesn't even reach the crap physics of regular Second life.

It supports LSL, OSL, and c# for scripting with a few limitations

It isn't just a few limitations. All my previously written scripts do not work what-so-ever on Opensim because so many functions are not implemented correctly or not implemented at all. Anything I was interested in, in regular Second life i

When Apple reinvents iLife to be a VR world where you can edit photos in a dark room, put up a virtual gallery of them, walk them down to get books made, etc. etc. Garage Band will actually be a garage studio where you can lay down tracks with your friends... pull off concerts for millions, etc etc. iMovie will be a virtual film studio with greenscreen and effects lab in real time....

Virtual reality is useful for allowing you to do things that would be too difficult/expensive/dangerous to do in the real world or more traditional interfaces, such as training on operating very valuable equipment or visualizing complex data. Slapping an "Oooh look, 3D!" interface onto an existing (and arguably well designed) workflow will only make a task harder and less fun to do, not easier and more fun. I realize you're just trolling, but the "3D Interace is teh aw3s0m3!" is infuriatingly common...

Oh i agree with you completely, which is why i was just trolling... there's nothing useful to add to this conversation until someone comes up with a legitimate input device for interacting in 3D.... using a 2D input device makes 3D visuals nothing but candy.

The only use for 3D now is entertainment value. I'm currently working on a 3D interface for a flash application to control an Inflight entertainment system... nothing but candy. A 2D interface would be easier to use, etc. etc. but hey... it's just entert

I find it strange so many people slate Second Life when there's so much potential for metaverse systems. What I'd love to see is 'gaming zones', so you'd be able enter a certain area of Second Life (or whatever), agree to a dialog box or some such and the rules and physics for any 3D game, first (Quake!) or third person (WoW-like?), would take effect with some kind of organisational system for points, tournies, time restriction, etc. Even just a basic samurai sword fight! I'll also expect to use a "Use your

Pssst. The already have some of that, although it's not quite Snow Crash yet. In world, check out Samurai Island, or DarkLife for examples of what you are asking for. There are also a few big RP/combat Sims, just look around.

Ugh, I understand the interoperability bootstrap concerns that lead to them being compatible with Linden's stuff, but Linden's stuff is just crap. It's poorly designed because it wasn't even designed, it was just accreted. The CTO they booted last (?) year even admitted he spent all of one night designing Linden Script (which was asinine decision #2 after asinine decision #1 to create Yet Another Scripting Language). The entire structure is just fragile as hell (and shows it) as they push one bleeding wound

Wow. Have you ever heard of Samba? It's kind of useful, most would agree..

At least according to the OpenSim docs, they have reversed the functionality of LL's sim servers into a completely new implementation. I'd also like to note that despite the flaws, and perhaps despite themselves, LL has managed to keep SL up and growing and is the only "virtual world" to actually succeed in this after, what, a dozen companies have tried?

Not that I'm holding up the LL Grid as a wonder of engineering or anything, but a

I don't think you comprehend at all how much being tied into a badly designed API constrains and weakens an implementation through all the bad explicit and implicit assumptions it makes, though I fully expect that OpenSim's implementation will be better.

It is, as I said, a highly polished version of a turd. But a turd that lets you unleash fleets of flying penises at will (which is what the other virtual worlds have failed to let you do), so perhaps that'll be good enough for OpenSim as it has been for Lind